WASHINGTON: The new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee sounded pretty sympathetic today to the Navy’s plan for a separate budget line to fund a new generation of nuclear missile submarines.

But Rep. Mac Thornberry, known for his close attention to detail, also said he understood it was very important to use the right funding lines and such to provide accurate accounting. That might militate against a separate account, but Thornberry said all the things a Navy bubblehead might want to hear about the cost of the Ohio Replacement Program (formerly SSBN-X) gobbling up the rest of the shipbuilding budget. And he says he is “sure the Air could make a similar argument” for funding replacement of its ICBM and bomber fleets.

The head of the Air Force’s bomber and ICBM fleets, Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, said this morning at a separate event that he is “watching closely” what happens to the Navy effort. After all, the ICBM and bomber fleets are a lot older than the submarine fleet. In fact, Wilson said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast that the missile silos are getting their first “deep clean” since they were first built in the 1960s.

Wilson said they are working to replace the phones and phone lines — good old-fashioned copper lines — used to link the silos. That will take “a few years.” But the missiles and all their supporting systems — command and control assets, the cables linking the silos, and everything else — need to be replaced, just as their cousins, the 1960s-era B-52s need to be replaced so they can penetrate airspaces defended by the latest surface-to-air missiles.

Thornberry made clear he understands the centrality of the nuclear mission during a briefing with reporters today and pledged he would organize a full committee hearing on strategic nuclear forces.

People Problems

In other news, the HASC chairman told us “it disturbs me” that five of six uniformed military personnel recently told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel they would either leave or weren’t sure if they’d stay in the military.. The HASC will hold its first hearing a week from Wednesday with the leaders of the congressionally-mandated Commission on Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization. Thornberry said he often hears from constituents when he’s home about captains and majors with wartime experience who plan to leave the military or have gotten pink slips. The commission’s report on military pay and benefits is expected to be released later this week.

If you want to see how the National Guard Association and the Association fo the US Army have positioned themselves on these issues, click here.

Finally, I asked Wilson whether the Long Range Strike Bomber would command fleets of drones. He reconfirmed that the bomber itself would be “optionally unmanned”. When I pressed him about the bomber directing other aircraft, he very politely declined to answer. The lid remains on.